


Footprints in the Snow

by pigeonking



Series: The Chronicles of Mord [5]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Folklore, Horror, Monsters, Vikings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 08:49:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16829167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeonking/pseuds/pigeonking
Summary: Mord goes toe to toe with a creature that Hellboy fans may find familiar...





	Footprints in the Snow

Mord Liutson had arrived to find a village in mourning. Everywhere around him he was assailed by the sounds of women wailing and children weeping, whilst the men of the village hung their heads in shame, none daring even to make eye contact with him as he passed through the frozen huts of the Rus settlement.

Mord found his way to the centre of the village where he believed the hut of the chief would be located. It was here that he found the only male to share in the weeping and wailing. The man in question was evidently the chieftain that Mord sought after, if he was to provide the answers that Mord needed then the questions would have to be asked tactfully.

“You are the chief here?” he opened quietly.

“Who asks?” the weeping man rasped through ragged breaths. “Can’t you see we are in mourning?”

“Forgive me, my Lord.” Mord replied tactfully. “I meant no disrespect. I am Mord Liutson and I merely ask if I may help with whatever grieves you?”

“There is nothing that can be done.” The chieftain snarled bitterly and he hefted the broadsword that was cradled between his legs. “If there was don’t you think that I would do it?”

“Perhaps you would like to let me try?” Mord ventured cautiously. “Tell me what ails you and if I can, I will fix it.”

The chieftain regarded Mord disdainfully through eyes blurred with tears before letting out a sigh of resignation. He let his sword sink into the snowy ground at his feet and he began to tell Mord his story.

A short while later, Mord was following the strangest tracks that he had ever encountered in all of his years as a hunter of monsters. They had started out from the village, at the back of the chieftain’s hut and continued into the threadbare forest that clung to the wintry hillside that overlooked the settlement. Fortunately, there had been no fresh snowfall since the incident so the tracks were still visible, at least for now. They resembled great round indentations in the snow accompanied by an irregular sweeping line as if some large heavy, rotund object were being propelled through the snow by a smaller implement.

Mord had barely entered the forest when the strange tracks disappeared and were replaced by a large square shape in the snow. Leading away from this square and deeper into the forest there was a fresh set of tracks that were completely different to the first. These were more like feet, three-toed bird-like feet to be exact. Mord deduced that this creature was bipedal and judging from the length of its stride probably towered over ten feet tall.

“Shouldn’t be too hard to spot it then.” He murmured out loud as he looked about in the direction in which the prints were headed.

Whatever had made the first set of prints had come to this other creature, with a square shaped body, sitting in the snow and was now riding it.

The chieftain had not told Mord much about this bizarre beast, only that it had taken his daughter and that there was no hope of ever getting her back from it.

“We’ll see about that!” Mord had told the chief firmly before setting off in pursuit.

There was only one other piece of information that the chieftain had imparted. A name.

Baba Yaga. 

Before he set off in the direction that these new tracks were headed Mord turned and looked towards a specific tree off at the edge of the clearing behind him.

“You can come out you know. I don’t bite.” He called. “I know that you’ve been following me. A new born lamb finding its feet treads with greater stealth than you!”

After a pause of a few short moments the chieftain of the Rus village stepped out from behind the tree, sword in hand.

“You shamed me.” The chieftain mumbled humbly. “The fact that a stranger is willing to do what I would not. I am the girl’s father and I would not go after her… had already given her up as dead. Until you came along. I thank you for that and you have my sword at your side if you need it.”

Mord just smiled and cocked his head sideways in a ‘come on’ gesture.

Together the two men set off in pursuit of Baba Yaga.

“What else can you tell me about this Baba Yaga, other than its name?” Mord asked as they trudged through the snow.

“Speaking of names, I do not know yours and I have not given my own.” The chieftain replied.

Mord nodded and offered his hand.

“I am Mord Liutson, nomadic warrior and hunter of monsters.”

“My name is Stanimir.” The chief returned and he grasped Mord’s hand in his, shaking it firmly.

“Now, about this Baba Yaga?” Mord prompted Stanimir gently.

“She is a powerful witch who can wield the earth and the very forest we stand in as her weapons.” Stanimir began. “As for weaknesses, I know that iron can hurt her…”

Mord unslung his great double-headed battle axe from across his shoulders.

“I have that!” he assured Stanimir, hefting the huge weapon in both hands.

“Yes, but getting close enough to her to use it will be a problem in itself. Her own magic can also be her undoing if you can find some way of turning it back on her, or maybe we could try fire? Aren’t you supposed to burn witches?” Stanimir suggested.

“Not all witches are evil.” Mord replied quietly and it sounded like he spoke from experience.

“This one means to eat my little Miloslava if we cannot catch up with her.” Stanimir rumbled anxiously.

“Then perhaps we should try moving a little faster?” Mord grinned and broke into a gentle, but brisk run.

Stanimir laughed despite himself and ran after him.

As the two men had followed the weird tracks it had started to snow again.

“We must hope that we catch sight of this witch soon before her tracks are covered by this fresh snow.” Mord observed as he and Stanimir matched pace with each other.

It was Stanimir that spotted the little hut first.

“Over there!” he pointed off to the small dwelling that sat forlornly in the centre of an oval clearing, surrounded by skeletal trees.

“The tracks lead right to it!” Mord observed. It made no sense. This creature could not have fit into such a small hut. The witch maybe, but not her ten-foot steed.

“We must approach with caution.” Mord warned. “If the witch is inside then her beast cannot be far away.”

“But the tracks end at the hut.” Stanimir replied. “If it is still about then either it flew from here or disappeared into the air.”

Mord said nothing. He had made the same observation and he hefted his axe in both hands as they trudged nearer to the lonely cabin.

“How are we going to do this?” Stanimir whispered. “If we just go barging in there she could probably just cut us down instantly with her magic.”

“Perhaps if I knock on the door I can cut off her head as soon as she answers it and before she has the chance to use any magic.” Mord mused, weighing the idea in his mind thoughtfully.

Stanimir shrugged.

“Can’t hurt to try it.” He conceded.

Mord shifted his grip on his axe, transferring it to his right hand and raising it at the level that he guessed that he’d need it to be in order to deliver a blow that would sever the Baba Yaga’s head from her shoulders. Then he raised his left fist and knocked on the door of the little cabin.

Neither he nor Stanimir were prepared for what happened next.

The hut sprang up out of the snow and onto its feet.

For a moment the two warriors were stunned by the sight that stood before them.

The hut had feet. Two three-toed chicken feet with wickedly sharp claws, at the end of long, scaly chicken-like legs. There never had been a ‘beast’, they had been following the hut’s tracks this whole time.

Both men were galvanised into action when one of the clawed feet kicked out at them and they had to leap aside into the snow in order to avoid being hit.

Mord rolled and came up in a crouch, still hefting his axe one handed. He clasped the weapon once more in a two-handed grip.

At the moment the hut seemed focussed on trying to stamp Stanimir into the snow, but fortunately the Rus chieftain was managing to evade it so far.

While it was thus distracted Mord decided to act. He spun around on the spot a few times to build up momentum, his feet wearing a powdery circle into the snow, and then he launched his axe at the legs of the rampaging hut.

The axe spun through the air until one of the blades became embedded within the hut’s left leg, just below the knee joint. An uncanny and inhuman keening sound seemed to groan from the wood of the hut and it came crashing down into the snow. Such was the force of the impact that the wooden hut splintered open and spilled the Baba Yaga onto the ground in a shower of timber.

Mord and Stanimir stared in wide eyed horror at the wizened old crone before them. Her hair was a filthy, matted tangle that stood on end upon her wrinkled old scalp; the crinkled grey-brown skin of her face and body seemed to hang loosely from the skeleton beneath, as if they were ill fit for her bones; black eyes twinkled malevolently from sunken sockets over a long, hooked and pointed nose, her mouth was a harsh, lipless slit and dirty, jagged teeth were visible, tendrils of grimy mucus dribbling down her chin like pus from a septic wound. Hideous though her face was at least it partially detracted from the fact that she was naked and her shrivelled and wrinkled tits flopped pitifully against her bloated overhanging stomach. Her bottom half was hidden entirely within a large iron mortar that resembled a cauldron and in her bony, skeletal fingers she clutched a long wooden pestle.

The Baba Yaga lay sprawled in the snow where she had fallen and she regarded the two warriors with hatred and malice blazing in her black eyes as she used her pestle to push herself off the snow and return the mortar that made up her lower half into an upright position.

In that moment Mord realised how the peculiar tracks that he had followed earlier had been made.

“Where is my daughter?” Stanimir demanded. “Where is my Miloslava?”

Another realisation instantly came to Mord.

“She is in the cauldron!” he realised. “Under the witch!”

“You will have to kill me to claim her!” the Baba Yaga rasped in a deathly harsh whisper that still managed to reverberate around the snowy clearing as if carried upon the wind itself.

“We’re getting to that!” Mord assured her as he broke into a run towards her.

As he rapidly closed the distance between him and the witch he pulled out his seax from its sheath at his belt. It was not as big and impressive as his axe, but it was still made of iron and would still kill Baba Yaga if he could close with her and bury its blade deep into her withered flesh.

Baba Yaga raised her pestle into the air above her head in a two-handed grip and then brought it down hard into the snow, the white powder exploding much more violently than it should have from the impact. The ground beneath the snow trembled from the eldritch power that was unleashed in that one blow and Mord had to check his charge when the roots of the nearby trees suddenly burst forth from the earth itself and blocked his path to the witch.

That was not the end of it, however. The dark roots seemed to writhe with a life all of their own and reached for the Norse warrior like grasping tentacles.

Mord hacked at them with his seax and the sap spurted like blood from each wooden limb that he severed, but for every tendril that was cut another seemed to rise up and take its place and very soon the warrior found his legs and wrists bound by these roots.

The cackle of the Baba Yaga sang triumphantly on the winter wind. She outstretched one skeletal, bony hand and clutched the spindly fingers into a claw.

Mord gritted his teeth against the pain as the roots began to constrict and squeeze his legs and wrists. Some were even now writhing their way around his body and his neck and he knew that if they got their hold on him there then his end would soon follow. The more that he thrashed to try and break free that tighter that the winding roots became. It seemed hopeless.

Then there was a roar from behind Mord and the blade of his axe was suddenly there hacking at the roots.

It was Stanimir. He had retrieved Mord’s axe from the leg of Baba Yaga’s hut and was now striving to free Mord from the witch’s vine attack.

Once Mord’s hands were free he sliced the roots from around his neck and middle and then together he and Stanimir made short work of the rest of the writhing wood.

“Yours I believe.” Stanimir grinned as he handed Mord back his axe.

Mord took it from him and grinned back in gratitude.

“What say we kill this bitch now?” he snarled, his words were for Stanimir, but his eyes burned deeply into the witch as she cavorted and taunted them across the snow.

“Aye!” Stanimir agreed, once more hefting his sword.

The two men charged her together.

Baba Yaga cackled with maniacal glee as the two men closed in. Again, she raised her pestle and pounded it into the snow and this time the very ground itself exploded around her, sending up shards of frozen rock flying towards the charging warriors. One such shard caught Stanimir a glancing blow upon his forehead, slicing it open and casting blood into his eyes. The Rus chieftain stumbled and fell face first into the snow.

Mord threw up his arms in front of his face the moment he saw the stony missiles hurtling towards him and he leapt through the barrage. He managed to clear the magical onslaught, suffering only minor cuts upon his hands and arms and then he was swinging his axe at the Baba Yaga.

The witch brought up her pestle and parried the axe blow with seemingly little effort.

Mord’s eyes widened in amazement. His blade had caught the handle of the pestle dead centre. It should have sliced right through and yet it had not. Instead his axe blade lay across the handle and each time Mord raised it to attack again, the Baba Yaga would counter the blow. Then the witch spun around in a circle within her mortar, sweeping low with the pestle and swept Mord’s feet from under him.

The mighty Norse warrior, whom trolls feared, landed heavily upon his back on the frozen ground knocking all of the wind out of him.

Baba Yaga hobbled towards him on her mortar ‘foot’, her long black tongue greasing her lips as if she could taste her victory. As she approached, the tip of her pestle’s handle elongated into a sharpened spear-like point.

Baba Yaga raised the ‘spear’ above her head and prepared to plunge it down into Mord’s chest.

Mord struggled upon his back, like a beetle that has been overturned and cannot right itself, but his bones ached too much and he was still too winded to even try to parry the blow that would kill him.

He gripped his axe tightly in his hand. At least he would die a warrior, facing his enemy. The heroes of Valhalla would welcome him. Perhaps he would see his father and mother again?

“Get it over with, bitch-hag!” he growled in defiance. “I do not fear death!”

A crimson-coated metal point burst forth from Baba Yaga’s abdomen. Bewilderment replaced the look of victory on her withered features and the barb-tipped pestle slipped out of slackening fingers, embedding in the snow between Mord’s splayed legs, missing his balls by inches.

Blood belched from her mouth to trickle down her chin and splash upon the winter white ground.

Then the blade that had impaled her continued its path of destruction, tearing up the centre of her body, bisecting her withered tits and carrying on further upwards until her head was split in two. The blade then vanished in an arc of gore leaving the two halves to flop away from each other with a meaty, wet sound as they spilled out of the mortar and onto the snow. Most of her internal organs followed, but some leaked out and fell into the mortar.

Standing behind the now empty looking mortar was Stanimir, his face a mask of blood from the gash in his forehead. He thrust his bloodied sword into the snow and bent into the mortar whispering soothing words in his native tongue. When he came up again a pale and terrified, wide eyed little girl with sandy, braided hair was in his arms. Miloslava clung to her father and wept as he cleaned off some of the Baba Yaga’s innards that had fallen upon her.

Stanimir kissed the top of his daughter’s head and he looked down at Mord, reaching down a hand to help him to his feet.

“I will never be able to repay you for all that you have done today, Mord Liutson.” He proclaimed.

Mord shrugged as he put away his axe and seax.

“You saved my life, Stanimir.” He replied. “I’d say we were even.”

“Perhaps we are, my friend, perhaps we are.” Stanimir shook his head in agreement. “But know that you are always welcome within my village and should you ever need an extra sword at your side you can always count on mine.”


End file.
